Everybody's Going: City Newspapers and the Early Mass Market for Movies

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 339-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul S. Moore

The emergence of the mass market as a concept ordering distinctions in urban space is investigated through newspaper reporting and promotion of early movie‐going in Toronto, 1907–1916. The analysis builds upon a revision of Chicago Sociology's text on The City, shifting the method and theoretical weight to rest more on Park's Natural History of the Newspaper than Burgess' Growth of the City. The metropolitan newspaper is both document and agent of urbanization, and is used here to describe how modernity was grounded in mass culture. The newspaper provides a sensible version of urban living for city dwellers, a map or menu of the city's rhythms and spaces. Specific to the movies, there is a shift from journalism to promotion, from trying to understand the audience to letting advertising for ever‐changing film titles stand in for the urban practice. In particular, the brief fad of serial films with accompanying stories in newspapers perhaps marks when a mass audience was first assumed. Serial films provided an umbrella text to explicitly show how the variety of spaces, times, prices, and classes of audiences encompassed a common practice, a mass practice.

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Wojciech J. Cynarski

Background. The cavalry was the primary armed force of Poles and their legendary ancestors from ancient times, especially in historical formations. It also functions as an element of national history in culture in its various areas. Problem. How this fragment of the old Polish military culture manifests itself in high and mass culture, in the world of film, in the city space, in pictures and numismatic values, and how is it displayed in the field of martial arts cultivated today? Method. The answers will be formulated based on an analysis of 30 selected works of art, value or cultural artefacts and illustrated with examples. Examples include films of Polish cinematography (Teutonic Knights, The Deluge, Hubal and others), a series of commemorative medals and paintings by outstanding Polish painters that inspired the authors of these medals. Therefore, both great paintings by outstanding artists (Jan Matejko, Wojciech Kossak etc.), monuments and films, and small graphic forms (coins, medals). Results and conclusions. This Polish tradition of military culture manifests itself even today in high culture (painting, literature) and mass culture (films, songs), in urban space (monuments), and the artistic qualities of medals. It is also cultivated in the Polish martial art practised today – in teaching one of the schools. It is about horse fencing in Signum Polonicum.


Author(s):  
Carlos Machado

This book analyses the physical, social, and cultural history of Rome in late antiquity. Between AD 270 and 535, the former capital of the Roman empire experienced a series of dramatic transformations in its size, appearance, political standing, and identity, as emperors moved to other cities and the Christian church slowly became its dominating institution. Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome provides a new picture of these developments, focusing on the extraordinary role played by members of the traditional elite, the senatorial aristocracy, in the redefinition of the city, its institutions, and spaces. During this period, Roman senators and their families became increasingly involved in the management of the city and its population, in building works, and in the performance of secular and religious ceremonies and rituals. As this study shows, for approximately three hundred years the houses of the Roman elite competed with imperial palaces and churches in shaping the political map and the social life of the city. Making use of modern theories of urban space, the book considers a vast array of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic documents to show how the former centre of the Mediterranean world was progressively redefined and controlled by its own elite.


Author(s):  
Piotr Fereński

Город как одно из важнейших явлений современного глобализированного мира является предметом исследования различных научных дисциплин. Это важный феномен для изучения истории цивилизации, процессов урбанизации, развития архитектуры, взаимоотношений между пространственным планированием и религиозными и политическими идеями, для исследования социальных и экономических изменений, городского образа жизни, истории искусства, а также для критики современного искусства. Элементарный анализ города присутствует также в области литературоведения, исследований звука и перформанса, психологии (восприятие пространства и его свойств), педагогики, политологии (с интересом к теме прямой демократии или же городских движений). Вопросы оптимизации моделей функционирования города важны для департаментов, ориентированных на транспорт и инфраструктуру (водоснабжение, газ и т. д.), а также подземное строительство (автостоянки, гаражи, тоннели, метро). В проектировании «умного города» участвуют и информатика, занимающаяся процессом создания новых коммуникационных технологий, и факультеты биологии или охраны окружающей среды, которые ведут исследовательскую и дидактическую деятельность в области «прикладной экологии» – отношений, возникающих между средой, непосредственно окружающей человека, и природой. Сегодня технологические инновации и творческая сила культуры являются ключом к развитию города. Однако что это значит для представителей гуманитарных наук? Какую пользу они могут принести в этой области? Городское пространство может быть показано ими как неоднородное место, полное постоянной напряжённости, столкновений, круговорота значений, ценностей, представлений, а также как область значительных социальных экспериментов. Я воспринимаю человеческие практики и человеческое творчество как то, что постоянно подвергается трансформации и постоянно требует новых прочтений. В своих поисках я часто выхожу за стены Академии и пытаюсь ощутить характер города, ощутить его пространство всеми своими чувствами. Я непосредственно наблюдаю образ жизни жителей, их повседневные практики. Я слушаю, что они говорят, и читаю, что они выражают на стенах домов. Это своеобразное блуждание по городу имеет целью запечатлеть то, что видно, а также то, что остаётся для нас на первый взгляд недоступным. Это собрание заметок, попытка визуальной и аудиозаписи окружающего мира, которые я затем пытаюсь структурировать и интерпретировать. Однако нам, академикам, нужно как экспертам «выходить» в город и по-другому – мы должны выступать в общественных дебатах и влиять на решения различных муниципальных учреждений, оказывать влияние на местную политику. Такова и дискуссия о роли университета в формировании городского пространства и жизни в городе.The city as one of the most important phenomena of the modern globalized world is the subject of investigations of various scientific disciplines. It is important phenomena for studies on the history of civilization, on urbanization processes, on the development of architecture, on the relationships between spatial planning and religious and political ideas, for studies on social and economic changes, for studies on urban ways of life, studies on the history of art, as well as critique of contemporary art. There are also elementary analyzes of a city in the field of literary studies, sound studies, performance studies, psychology (the perception of space and its properties), pedagogy, political science (interested in direct democracy or even urban movements). The issues of optimization of models of the city’s functioning are important for departments oriented on transport and infrastructure (water, gas etc.), as well as underground construction (car parks, garages, tunnels, metro). Informatics dealing with the process of creation of new communication technologies is involved in the design of “smart city”. The faculties of biology or environmental protection conduct research and didactic activities in the field of “applied ecology” – relations that occurring between the human environment and nature. Today technological innovation and creative power of culture are the key to the development of the city. However, what does it mean for the representatives of humanities? What can they bring to it? The city space then appears as a heterogeneous place, full of constant tensions, collisions, circulation of meanings, values, representations, as well as the field of great social experiments. I perceive the human practices and creations as something that is a subject to constant transformation and that constantly requires new readings. In my search, I often go beyond the walls of the academy and try to sense the character of the city and experience its space with all my senses. I keenly observe the ways of life of the inhabitants, their daily practices. I listen to what they say and read what they manifest on the walls of buildings. This peculiar wandering around the city is aimed at capturing what is visible, but also at reaching what remains inaccessible to us at first glance. It is a collection of notes, it is an attempt at visual and audio recording of the surrounding world, which I then try to structure and interpret. However, as experts, we academics need to “go out” to the city also in a different way – we must take the floor in public debates and have an influence on the decisions of various municipal institutions, have an impact on local politics. There is a discussion about the role of the university in shaping urban space and life in the city.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-145
Author(s):  
Sema Tuba Özmen ◽  
Beyza Onur

Architecture, which is associated with the practice of producing space, has always rendered the powers and ideologies visible. This study investigates the government houses in the 19th century Ottoman State with regard to the notions of power and ideology and focuses on the Government House of Safranbolu. It is known that, in the specified period, government houses were important ideological interventions to urban space. This study aims to address the ideological context of the Safranbolu Government House, which is positioned with the ideal of the state. Based on this, first, the urban history of Safranbolu was examined. The importance of Safranbolu Government House in the history of the city, its relationship with the city, its ideological message to the city-dwellers and its architectural style were analyzed through a method based on archival research. All government houses of the period are the artifacts of urban-spatial structures and their architectural style as well as a shared ideology. Safranbolu Government House, which is one of the structures symbolizing the Ottoman State, was also built with a similar ideological consideration. Thus, the readability of the dominant ideology through the production style of Safranbolu Government House, one of the final period architectural artifacts of the Ottoman State, was verified.


2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Afshin Marashi

AbstractThis article investigates the evolution of print culture and commerce in Tehran during the first half of the 20th century. The first section examines technological changes that facilitated the commercialization of texts and then details the history of early print entrepreneurs in the Tehran bazaar. The second section examines the expansion of the book trade between the 1920s and 1940s, tracing the emergence of modern bookstores in a rapidly changing Tehran. I argue that patterns of change in print commerce between 1900 and 1950 contributed to the emergence of mass culture by midcentury. This new mass culture involved the social and political empowerment of a diversity of new reading publics in the city, and enabled the emergence of new forms of popular politics.


Author(s):  
Paulo Cruz Terra ◽  
Marcelo de Souza Magalhães

The city of Rio de Janeiro underwent profound changes between 1870 and the early 20th century. Its population grew dramatically, attracting migrants not only from abroad but also from other regions of Brazil. It also expanded significantly in size, as the construction of trolley and railway lines and the introduction of real estate capital powered the occupation of new areas. Meanwhile, urban reforms aimed at modernization transformed the social ways in which urban space was used. During this period, Rio de Janeiro went from being the capital of the Brazilian Empire to being the capital of the Brazilian Republic. It nevertheless maintained its position as the cultural, political-administrative, commercial, and financial center of the country. Against this backdrop of change, the city was an important arena for the political struggles that marked the period, including demonstrations in favor of abolition and the republic. Rio de Janeiro’s citizens were not inert during this period of transformation, and they found various ways to take action and fight for what they understood to be their rights. Protests, demands, petitions, and a vibrant life organized around social and political associations are examples of the broad repertoire used by the city’s inhabitants to gain a voice in municipal affairs. Citizens’ use of public demands and petitions as a channel to communicate with the authorities, and especially with city officials, shows that while they did not necessarily shun formal politics, they understood politics to be a sphere for dialogue and dispute. The sociocultural history of Rio de Janeiro during this period was therefore built precisely through confrontations and negotiations in which the common people played an active role.


Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins

The penultimate chapter looks at the longer-term impact of the efflorescence of evolutionary speculation in early-nineteenth-century Edinburgh on later generations of natural historians. First it examines the evangelical reaction against progressive models of the history of life and its role in the eclipse of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians.’ Next it examines to the evolutionary theory proposed by Robert Chambers in his anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) to assess its possible debt to the Edinburgh transformists of the 1820s and 1830s. Finally it turns to the important question of the possible influence of the ‘Edinburgh Lamarckians’ on Charles Darwin during his time as a medical student in Edinburgh in the years 1825 to 1827, during which period he rubbed shoulders with many of the key proponents of evolutionary ideas in the city.


1996 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Mulligan

Robert Hooke's intellectual life was steadfastly dedicated to the pursuit of natural philosophy and the formulation of an appropriate method for studying nature, His daily life, however, was seemingly fragmented—an energetic rush in and around the city of London, with him acting now as curator (and later secretary) of the Royal Society, now as Cutlerian Lecturer in the History of Nature and Art, now as Geometry Professor at Gresham College, now as architect and surveyor of postfire London, and forever as a member of a number of intersecting social, intellectual, and professional circles that made up London's coffeehouse culture. Such a range of activities was perhaps wider than that of many of his contemporaries, though other diarists, most notably Samuel Pepys, recorded similarly crammed lives. Yet despite the apparently unsystematic nature of his daily round he was, also like Pepys, a methodical man who hated to waste time, and for long periods he kept a diary that helped him account for how he spent it.I argue here that his diary keeping was an integral part of his scientific vision reflecting the epistemological and methodological practices that guided him as a student of nature. The diary should be read, I propose, not as an “after-hours” incidental activity removed from his professional and intellectual life; both its form and its content suggest that he chose to record a self that was as subject to scientific scrutiny as the rest of nature and that he thought that such a record could be applied to producing, in the end, a fully objective “history” with himself as the datum.


Author(s):  
Elena L. Iakovleva

The relevance of the research topic is due to the interest in urban space and its cultural and symbolic meaning. The city, perceived as a text, helps in interpreting to understand its specifics and represent it at different levels, which increases, among other things, its tourist attractiveness. The purpose of the study is to analyze the metaphor of Kazan-a woman through the prism of the gastronomic culture of the Tatars. Materials and Methods of Research. The methodological basis of the research consists of the cosmosophical ideas of G. D. Gachev, as well as the books of K. F. Fuchs, K. Nasyri, F. Ibragimova, S. Lutfullina, in which there are characteristics of the gastronomic culture of the Tatars. In the original metaphor, analyzed from the point of view of G. D. Gachev’s cosmosophy, where Kazan represents the Cosmos, and a woman represents Psyche, a missing link is found – the Logos. It is this link that, while remaining an open structure, accommodates various spheres of manifestation of the national mind in the field of culture and art, which helps to identify the feminine qualities of the city when interpreting the metaphor. Results. A stable association associated with Kazan is its Tatar national cuisine. This is no coincidence. The very history of the city according to some extant legends and legends is associated with the cauldron, which is a mandatory attribute of the cuisine. Despite the primacy of the man in the family, the mistress of the kitchen is a woman. It is on her that a huge number of duties are assigned to prepare food and create a spiritual atmosphere during the meal. Gastronomic culture, acting as a Logo, allows us to identify such qualities of Kazan, interpreted as an image of a woman-hostess, as hospitality, cordiality, respect, sensitivity, creativity, rationalism, skillful and careful handling of products. Discussion and conclusion. Clarification of the meaning of the Kazan-woman metaphor requires further study. At the same time, other spheres of culture and various texts of art can act as Logos.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 142-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Aigle

AbstractShiraz is distinguished from other cities due to its reputation as the city of saints and poets, as previously emphasised in the title of Arberry’s book of 1960: “Shiraz, Persian City of Saints and Poets”. In textual sources, the city is the “Fortress of saints” (burj al-awliyā’). Shiraz owes its sanctity to the many mausoleums dedicated to the descendants of ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib (and Šāh-i Čirāġ), as well as famous mystics such as Šayḫ Kabīr (d. 371/982) and Rūzbihān Baqlī (d. 606/1209). The poets Sa‘dī (d. 691/1292) and Ḥāfiẓ (d. 792/1390) celebrated Shiraz as the city of roses and nightingales. Their sanctuaries, which still the object of pious visits, accentuate the “capital” of city’s sacrality.After reconstructing the urban space in which the sacred buildings are located, the purpose of this paper is to show how the specific sanctity of the city emerged from the textual sources. Two major texts addressing the sanctity of Shiraz date from the eighth/fourteenth century. In the Šīrāz-nāma (completed in 744/1343), Ibn Zarkūb unfolds the history of the city and speaks of its merits. In Šadd al-īzār (ca. 791/1389), a guide for pilgrimage to Shiraz’s seven cemeteries, Junayd Šīrāzī describes the ritual geography of the city. He notes the places where the Shirazis are buried, thus establishing the symbolic presence of the deceased among the living. Alid shrines in particular thus contributed to the “capitalisation of the sacred” in Shiraz.


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